Without the Arab world, there would be no computers or the Internet....

The Arab world is responsible for many advancements in mathematics and science such as algebra (which was invented by an Iraqi named al-Kwarizmi, whose name gives us the word "algorithm"). Without algebra, there would be no computers, and no Internet.

I thought all Arabs were good-for-nothing terrorists and nothing more!

a history of invention and brilliance. But when you believe that the white man did it all, it's really hard to believe anything else.

They served as custodians of knowledge of the Antique during the Dark Ages in Europe and added to it with developments of their own. They were also more tolerant than most of Europe at the time. After that, of course, they have had their own Dark Age and have still not recovered.

But I think it is false to say that without the Arab world there would be no algebra etc., because someone else would have invented it (of course we would not call it Algebra then). Just like it would be false to say that without Greek there would be no Geometry or that without Germans there would be no internal combustion engine.

We just might not have it 'yet.'
Unfortunately, right now the most valuable export from the Arab world is indeed oil. That and instability.

on previous advancements in the Islamic civilization ..... if you don't have a base you ain't going nowhere.....

Isaac Newton (your avatar):
If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.

Fits quite well here.

that !

:hi:

:D

Apparently no one else appreciates my humor :7

:hi:

Built in their own turn on the Greeks and Romans who preceeded them, and whose works they had access to by virtue of conquering the eastern portion of the Roman world.

This whole line is one of stunning irrelevance, to my view.

How insightful, that when the subject turns to the accomplishments of Islam, you find the need to post its "stunning irrelevance."

You have been scarce of late, much to my dismay.

This is a subject subjected to a good deal of politically motivated distortion. For some reason a certian claque on the left, though the left itself is an offspring of the Enlightenment period of Western thought, has invested a good deal of effort in denigrating the accomplishments of the West in the modern era. They are formidable, and the fact that the West was, a thousand years or so ago, a less civilized backwater is quite irrelevant to them. Similarly, that Islamic civilation was considerably in advance of the West in that same elder period is quite irrelevant to its stagnation over the last six or seven centuries, that has allowed both the Occident and the Orient to move into positions considerably in advance of it. Further, there really is no doubt that a good deal of what is trumpeted as Islamic intellectual advance in that previous period is really little more than recycling of the work and ideas of Classic sages of the Mediterranean world.

The word Admiral is Arabic. It derives from el-emir-al, or "the lord of the sea".

This great Arab intellectual movement was fostered, like their Roman and European counterparts, by the Greek academic impulse ...

Christians burned Greek (and Roman and ... ) literature ... while Arab's SAVED most of whatever Greco/Roman works we now have ....

Theodosius attempted to destroy 'Paganism' by ridding the world of all non-christian books .... like Tertullian, he saw no point in learning ANYTHING but the bible, which is much like today's muslim Madrassas, where Quran is the only subject taught ...

That being said: The Golden Age of Baghdad ended about 1000 years ago .... The Arab culture has saw similar gains in scholarship as other cultures since ... Some great works, but mostly inane, creedalistic humbug ...

two very important contributions in the worlds of finance and music, respectively

"Checkmate" comes from shah mata, meaning "The shah (king) is dead".

Not Arab. Quite different peoples, dispite the fact that they are both (now, and predominately) Muslim.

it's not like someone else wouldn't have figured out algebra eventually.

Arabic? Roman numerals would have been a tad cumbersome wouldn't they.

One of the early Church Fathers, Origen (c.185–c.255), who lived in Alexandria, produced a polyglot edition of the Hebrew Bible. For those more technically-minded than me, it was, for the most part, in six columns—a Hebrew text, a Greek transliteration of it, and four Greek versions, and a revised version of the Septuagint). For certain sections of the Hebrew text, three further Greek versions were added.

Some of the most extraordinarily prophetic and insightful writings concerning the Christian scriptures and the Christian faith were written by another North African church Father, St Augustine of Hippo. Many of the Readings in the current Prayer of the Church (formerly, the Divine office and before that, the Hours) are taken from his works.

There used to be in those early times, even before Origen's day, I believe, a great library in Alexandria, which, unfortunately was burnt down, with the loss of all its scrolls. Here is a URL on the subject:

http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm.

Surprise! Surprise! It appears to have been destroyed by an occupying power, the Romans.

An interesting URL, also, is:

http://horizons-2000.org/1.%20World%20and%20Being/realization/being-elements/History%20of%20thought%20and%20action.html

Click on Search for the word, "Arabic", and you find a lot of fascinating information in this site, which is devoted to the history of knowledge, (although focusing, of course, on the contributions of the Arabic world, in the Search case in point).